In the fast-paced hospitality world, regular one-on-one meetings with your supervisors are crucial to keep the team aligned, motivated, and growing. Not nly that, but as a manager (leader) your primary task should typically revolve around building the strength of your team as a whole.
But I’m the first to admit that this is no small task…
I just had my latest round of one-on-one meetings with my team of managers and supervisors. And these unearthed some truly pivotal opportunities for the restaurant.
Giving your leaders the space to share their insights is critical, but without a clear follow up plan it’s more than likely that the time amounts to very little.
We all know restaurant teams love structure and systems – here is how I approached having meaningful conversations that resulted in actual progress with my team.
Step 1: Four Key Questions
I start each meeting with four focused questions give space for true, personal insights. While on the surface they seem simple, questions that allow for genuine conversation (rather than only KPIs, numbers and jargon)
A quick note:
Open ended questions are key here. These questions are intentionally vague, which allows your team member to steer this conversation almost instinctively.
Why is this important?
Because whatever they speak to is important to THEM. Yes, you have things that are important to you as a senior leader. But your team will also have pride points and pain points, and you have an opportunity to learn here what will motivate your team to move forward.
1 – What do you think is going well?
Start with strength and positive aspects. What about this place makes your leaders proud to work here?
2 – What do you think we have room to improve on?
OK, now the good stuff. Encouraging honest reflection on challenges or inefficiencies fosters openness and problem-solving. You’ll be amazed at the variety of answers here.
Some people will have very strategic, big picture answers. Other will be very tactical. In my most recent round, I heard “closing routine needs work”, “we need more training on by the bottle wines”, “I think section allocation could be rethought” and “can we change the par level on cutlery rolls”.
Again, the key here is that you are digging into specific pain points per leader. This will be critical when we develop our Quick Wins in the next section.
3 – What do you need from me (as your leader)?
Feedback is a two way street. You need to provide your leaders with clear direction and growth opportunities. And you need to be open to hearing what they feel is required from THEIR leaders to thrive.
This question helps you to define expectations and priorities from the POV of your team.
Quick warning – this is not a place to make promises. It’s common to reflex to “OK sure I can do that for you” which is not the goal here. The goal is to identify what feels most important to your team, and later strategically align to the whole, not make a whole bunch of promises and fill your plate with tasks that don’t move the needle.
4 – What area of the business would you like to learn more about?
This encourages curiosity, growth, and can help shape future development opportunities. If your leaders aren’t moving up, eventually they’ll look at moving out. Demonstrate you are committed to their development and find ways to align this with the goals of the business.
Step 2: Analyze
From the insights gathered, I spent some time collating and analyzing.
I looked for common themes, clear points that leaders align on and clear points that leaders conflict on.
Then, I spent some time on bridging how these themes align with the needs of the business, and who demonstrates particular interest in these areas and have the skills to push forward any projects that can support the development as a whole.
This step is critical to ensure that you aren’t sending your leaders in different directions – it can be all too easy to get trigger happy with tasks and miss the whole point.
From here, it’s time to build the action plans.
Step 3 – Action Plans
For each leader, I developed a clear action plan and sent it to them. This plan was broken into three parts:
Quick Wins
These are 1-2 actionable items with a short turnaround (usually one week). The goal is quick, independent improvement to build confidence and momentum.
Quick wins are easily solved issues that are assigned to a specialist (i.e. bar prep lists go the Beverage Manager, specific host training to the Guest Services Manager, etc.)
These tasks accomplish two key things:
- They immediately move the needle and accomplish an objective that gets off everybody’s list and
- They give both you and the leader a kickstarted positive feedback loop
Project
For bigger challenges or strategic opportunities, we define a project with a typical timeline of 3-4 weeks. These often require collaboration with others and offer the chance to make a meaningful impact on the business.
Examples here include building a new training guide or rolling out a new inventory system.
These projects should have checkpoints with timelines assigned, and multiple leaders assigned to work together and push forward.
Growth
I always include a growth component—a focused area for the supervisor to dedicate time to learning. This could be a skill, process, or business knowledge that aligns with their goals. It doesn’t necessarily have to be strictly within their field, as long as it is aligned with the business as a whole (i.e. you might find someone is particularly interested in recruiting systems or training, or you might find out that one of your senior leaders has always wanted to learn to bartend but was never given the chance)
Learning Recommendation
Along with the action plan, I suggest a relevant book, podcast, or other learning resource to support their growth area. This is optional but a great way to provide each leader with a sense that you are personally invested in their growth.
Why This Approach Works
- Structured yet flexible: The four questions guide the conversation without making it rigid, and ensure that it can remain a conversation rather than a review or a test of some kind.
- Empowers supervisors: They contribute ideas and take ownership of their growth, while also thinking critically about the needs of the business.
- Balanced focus: Combines immediate improvements with longer-term development.
- Builds trust: Regular, honest communication strengthens the leader-supervisor relationship.
Final Thoughts
One-on-one meetings are a powerful tool to align your leadership team and boost their performance. By asking the right questions and following up with a tailored action plan, you empower your supervisors and foster a culture of continuous improvement.
Curious to try this approach? Start with one meeting and see how it transforms your team dynamics. I’d love to hear how it goes!
